The Fabulous Baker Boys

The Fabulous Baker Boysⁱ takes great pride in a number of very small distinctions.

I. Best hooker morning face in all cinema :

II. Best compliment Jeff Bridges ever received in his entire life (both personal as well as professional, so I suppose it should say "Jeff Bridges as well as any character ever played by Jeff Bridges" except it is a distinction without difference - who the hell plays himself Friday night, except of course for monsters that also put girls on their knees and lash&whip their soft parts for simple sadistic pleasure) as well as best compliment ever dispensed by a hooker in the early morning, again including both fiat world as well as cinematic depictions (isn't it strange which of those two is the "fiat" world ?). She tells him "great hands".

III. Best selection of very bad female singers auditioning in a film. But I mean that, naturally atrocious. Not overdone, parodic, hyperbolaeic or anything of the sort, just, plain, plaid, unadulterated reality. And human beings can take very little reality indeed.

IV. Best sendaway line in the history of fucking sendaway lines. It goes : "Look, miss : we're tired, you're an hour and a half late and you have cum on your lip. We're going home." Seriously now, that toilet paper on shoe business ? So 1950s, so tame, so lame by comparison.

V. Best opening line of a guest lead vocal whose experience in entertainment consists of having been on call for the past three years with Triple A Escort Servicesⁱⁱ. It went "What fucking switch?!".

VI. Best sweat reference in all of showbiz. It went "We fucked. Twice. That's it. Once the sweat dries you still don't know shit about me." I defy you, find a better sweat reference. The whole scene is actually pretty good, as far as illustrating the eternally productive male-female confrontation goes, you can always reference the "at least my brother was not my pimp" / "soon enough you're all hollow" thing.

I mean... hey, it's not exactly the Oscars. Whadda ya want from me, I got Jeff Bridges over here.

1. 1989, by Steve Kloves, with Michelle Pfeiffer, Jeff Bridges. [↩]
2. By the way, has little miss Red Ridin' Heifer ever played anything other than some sort of hooker ? Not that she's doing a bad job of it in any sense, nor that women who never were and never will be hookers are worth anyone's time generally, but merely for my perverse curiosity. Has it happened ? [↩]